Malawi questions Madonna charity

At the time it seemed like a match made in heaven. Madonna and Malawi. Their names even started with the same letters. Like so many of Madonna’s relationships though, from Sean Penn through Warren Beatty to Guy Ritchie, it seems to have gone sour.

It seemed like love for a while. Malawi got lots of Madonna’s bucks to build schools, Madonna just got a couple of cute Malawian kids called David and Mercy to adopt (they had parents already, but those ones were African).

Now it seems that Malawi isn’t happy. Maybe Madonna doesn’t call regularly, or maybe they suspect she may be flirting with other Third World countries. Malawi’s ungrateful education minister has suggested that Madonna’s charity Raising Malawi hasn’t been that impressive.

Madonna had claimed that more than 4,800 children would have schooling because of her charity. Minister Eunice Kazembe questioned that figure. "The schools Raising Malawi claims to have constructed were already in existence," she said. "Raising Malawi only built 10 classroom blocks and not schools. People should know the difference between the two."

Details, details. What about the $15 million Madonna raised, with help from fellow followers of the Kabbalah cult, for an elite academy for girls near the capital Lilongwe? Impressive huh? Oh wait, construction was cancelled after a report claimed that funds had been siphoned into luxury cars and golf club membership and similar necessities, after villagers had been moved off the site.

Still at least Joyce Banda, the country’s president, still loves the Material Girl right? "I have a problem with a lot of things around the adoption of the children and the changing of the mind and then coming back to build community schools," Banda said last year, but you just know that deep down she is eternally grateful that Madonna chose her little country as a place to bestow her largesse.